Anatomy of a Blog Readership

ANATOMY OF A BLOG READERSHIP

by Antonio C. Antonio

August 11, 2014

Creating my Blogsite (http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/) was for this purpose: “This blogsite contains articles, papers and reports on the subject of environment and natural resources management together with economic development and human interest stories every now and then.  This blogsite intends to provide thought-provoking perspectives to increase the level of awareness on environmental issues and concerns aimed at inspiring individual and/or collective action towards protecting Mother Earth.” (Antonio, 2014)  It is easy to discern that the blogsite is largely dedicated to environmental matters and concerns.  After four months, 135 articles and almost 3,200 pageviews, it may be a good exercise to look back and evaluate what has been going on so far.

THE MOST READ ARTICLES:  The top 10 most read articles are: (1) Achievements of the Earth Summit; (2) An Inconvenient Reality; (3) Climate Change; (4) Masdan ang Bukas Ko (The Making of an Environment Advocacy Song); (5) Causes of Deforestation; (6) The Benefits We Derive From the Forest; (7) Angry Birds; (8) Posting Trash; (9) We Hate!; and, (10) Four Generations of Iskolars ng Bayan. Two of these articles are technical papers about the environment, seven are about a variety of environmental matters and two are social studies in nature.

PERCENTAGE OF READERS PER COUNTRY:  Here are the percentages of blog readers per country:  Philippines (32%), United States (26%), Saudi Arabia (10%), Iraq (6%), Russia (3%), Germany (3%), Indonesia (1%), China (1%), United Kingdom (1%), Vietnam (1%) and others (16%) Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand,  Poland, Qatar, Singapore, Romania, Slovakia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, and United Arab Emirates.

OBSERVATIONS:  Here are the ten significant observations on blog readership:

1.     I’m glad the Philippines (32%), my home country, topped the list of reader countries.  If not, it would have been a shame since most of the environmental topics are local and close to home.  It would be unthinkable if Filipinos were less interested in their own environmental, socio-political, cultural and economic conditions. 

2.     The United States (26%) came in second (perhaps) because there are a sizeable number of Filipinos living in the US.  But then, we will also have to factor-in the disparity in populations… 100 million Filipinos vis-à-vis “318 million Americans”. (http://www.census.gov/popclock/)   Although Americans are considered to be “techie” as they own more computers on a per-household basis.

3.     The region that has relatively more blog readers is the Middle East… countries like Saudi Arabia (10%), Iraq (6%), and Qatar and United Arab Emirates (both with less than 1%).

4.     The blog readers from Saudi Arabia (10%) and Iraq (6%) are a very interesting lot.  There is a big disparity in ecological characteristics (desert for Saudi Arabia and Iraq and tropical rain forest for the Philippines) but there is, to a certain degree, a common interest for environmental matters.

5.     Japan (less than 1%), considered to be the technology hub of Asia has curiously few blog readers.  Language barrier is perhaps the reason for this.

6.     European countries (such as the United Kingdom, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine) known as the “Old World” surprisingly have less than 1% blog readers.  Perhaps they are simply not interested or less interested in the environmental woes of an obscure country like the Philippines.

7.     Blog readers from the Middle East (like Saudi Arabia [10%], Iraq [6%] and United Arab Emirates [less than 1%]) are less likely to be interested in tropical rain forest ecosystems like the Philippines… much more on Philippine socio-political-economic affairs.

8.     Blog readers from the United Kingdom and other UK-influenced countries (such as: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, South Africa, etc., al registering less the 1%) are surprisingly few.  Are they way ahead of everyone in environmental matters?  They probably have little present-day concerns for the environment since they already addressed and looked into them decades ago.

9.     India (less than 1%), a country known for its high literacy rate also has few blog readers.  Curiously, India has more bloggers than the Philippines.

10.  African nations, perceived to be less educated, have relatively few blog readers.  Only Kenya and South Africa (both less than 1%) was picked up by the radar.

A prime consideration in this quick analysis is that environmental matters and concerns are not that popular.  Perhaps blogs on common-interest subject matters like tourist destinations, restaurants and food, fashion, motor cars, gadgets, etc. have a wider readership.  Neither do I claim having reached all the countries in the world.  But as far as my blogsite is concerned and backed-up by data, this is my simple anatomy of a blog readership.

Just my little thoughts…

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